Announcements!!!!

Zach and I have officially finished reading The Lord of the Rings and before we move on to our next book, we are going to have a live tweet viewing of The Return of the King on Thursday, October 10th, starting at 6:30 pm. We'll be using the hashtag #lotrbooktomovie. Feel free to participate! This is the version we'll be watching:

I kid. We're watching this version:

Seriously, though. Watch the anime version some time. It's an amazingly terrible movie that I grew up loving. The songs! Oh, the songs!

Our next book club selection is Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis, which is the first of The Space Trilogy (or, apparently, The Cosmic Trilogy). To hopefully accommodate more people, we're moving our book club hangouts to Saturday mornings. For the first meeting we'll start at 9:30 am, but this time is moderately adjustable. 

Our first meeting is Saturday, October 12th, at 9:30 am, and we'll be discussing the first four chapters of the book. I know, I know, I probably should have posted this sooner. Honestly, though, most of us will probably do the reading Friday night (or early Saturday morning).

Since there are no movie versions of any of The Space Trilogy (which is most likely a very good thing), Zach and I would like to continue our book-to-movie nights by watching and live tweeting other movies based on books. We're going to try to only do movies based on books that most of us have actually read, but if we happen to choose one that you haven't read, feel free to jump in anyway!

Our November movie will probably be Gatsby, based on The Great Gatsby. If we can't get copies of Gatsby from Redbox in November, we'll just watch the Robert Redford version on Netflix. There isn't a date set for this movie night yet, but hopefully this will give you enough time to read or reread the book. 

We definitely want your suggestions for our next movie nights, so if you have a movie based on a book that you'd like to rip apart with us on Twitter, post it in the comments!

To sum:

Thursday, October 10th, at 6:30 pm: Return of the King extended edition movie live tweet night, #lotrbooktomovie.

Saturday, October 12th, at 9:30 am: Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis hangout/discussion, first four chapters.

Some time in November: Live tweet movie night of Gatsby/The Great Gatsby. Suggestions for future movie nights welcome.

Let us know if you want to join any or all of these epic internet adventures! The more the merrier!

As a final note, Zach would like you all to know that cookies are nice.

Two Towers Movie Night!

Somehow, Zach and I have already finished The Two Towers, which seemed to go by very quickly. Next week we're starting on The Return of the King, and we'll be announcing soonish what our next  book will be.

Last night, we live tweeted a viewing of the extended edition of the movie version of The Two Towers. You can find all of our tweets under #lotrbooktomovie, or you can jump below to read the full transcript (most to least recent).

As always, post in comments and let us know if you'd like to join in. I promise we're friendly!

Sam takes cooking very seriously

Sam to Gollum: "Don't mess up my cookware or I will cut you."

Po-ta-toes

Leave it to Tolkien to foreshadow character development using food.

"You don't like fish and chips??? You must be evil."

Long-Overdue Posting: We Read the Book and Watched the Movie

Zach and I just finished The Fellowship of the Ring, and capped it off by live tweeting a viewing of the movie. To find all of our tweets, search for the hashtag #lotrbooktomovie. Or, click the jump below for a full transcription of all the tweets. Next week we're starting The Two Towers, so let us know if you're interested in joining!

A dangerous business

Reading the Prologue Is Important

It is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits are relatives of ours: far nearer to us than Elves, or even than Dwarves. Of old they spoke the languages of Men, after their own fashion, and liked and disliked much the same things as Men did. But what exactly our relationship is can no longer be discovered. The beginning of Hobbits lies far back in the Elder Days that are now lost and forgotten. Only the Elves still preserve any records of that vanished time, and their traditions are concerned almost entirely with their own history, in which Men appear seldom and Hobbits are not mentioned at all. Yet it is clear that Hobbits had, in fact, lived quietly in Middle-earth for many long years before other folk became even aware of them. And the world being after all full of strange creatures beyond count, these little people seemed off very little importance. But in the days of Bilbo, and of Frodo his heir, they suddenly became, by no wish of their own, both important and renowned, and troubled the counsels of the Wise and the Great.

--from the Prologue, The Fellowship of The Ring